The Jumbo Dog Hopper Vacs have had the ultimate test thrown at them and passed with flying colours. Canadian nuclear power station operators Darlington Nuclear Power Generation needed a powerful vacuum system that could lift their blasting shot, aluminium oxide, out of their water storage tanks immediately above the core of the reactor at Bowmanville in Ontario, that provides the power to Toronto. It was a big punt on their part as they had no case history to go on and needed a vacuum system that had huge power. They had tried several American systems and they fell short. The vertical lift for the heavy aluminium oxide was in excess of 16 feet (4 metres) vertically. The contracting company that cleans the power stations is Crossby Dewar and their point man is Julian Hay, a specialist coating inspector who advises Crossby Dewar and Darlington Nuclear.

The ball was set in play and Hopper Vac, manufactured by Vacteck Vacuums in Australia was given the task to design and build 4 systems for reactor number 2.

	The systems were designed using the immensely powerful Box Thruster design. Configured with only three of the power heads, Hopper Vac with it's inhouse testing calculated that aluminium oxide would be lifted considerably higher than 16 foot on full power.
	Part of the design criteria was that the units needed to have removable legs and be easy to freight. The design was settled on and the systems were built in a record 3 weeks. The tesing was complete and they were airfreighted to Pearson airpoort in Toronto ready for the road trip to Bowmanville and Darlington Number 2 reactor.
	The systems were set up inside the reactor building complex by Crossby Dewar and Darlington Nuclear staff ready for the test run.
	Once in place amongst all of the other equipment above the core of the reactor it was D-Day. Read what happened next below..................

Darlington Nuclear Generation, Reactor 2, Bowmanville, Ontario Canada.

Hi Robert,

Fired up the 1600 cfm HP 150 psi compressor, 600 feet away and tested the SUPOCs.

The crowds were amazed ...they sucked grit 20 ft straight up vertically at 80 PSI !!!

..and actually they are not that noisy at all (and Darlington Nuclear Power Station are fussy!).

Very impressive machinery!

Owners (DNGS) and contractor (Crossby Dewar) are very pleased and feeling warm and fuzzy and well vindicated.

The lousy pics show part of the story (better pics to follow).

The Beastly power pack lives in the scaffold tent enclosure, along with the dust collector and the blast pot with the recycler barrel mounted on top.

The main hopper lives outside and its straight up and into the the tank.

Real work starts on Saturday....so by Monday I should have a valid report based on actual real time experience.

Excellent....I am very pleased.

Thank you!

regards

Julian

Julian Hay.
NACE Certified Coating Inspector #7382
SSPC Protective Coating Specialist

Advising to Darlington Nuclear Power Generation, Ontario

May18th 2009

After the real test Julian responded....

Hi Robert,
Victory has been achieved!
Monstrous sucking has been achieved and multiple tons of used 16 grit aluminum oxide blasting grit has smoothly moved approximately 16 feet to 20 feet straight up out of the tank, over and down to the hopper ...so the crowds are ecstatic.....and attracting quite abit of attention from within the plant.

Julian Hay.
NACE Certified Coating Inspector #7382
SSPC Protective Coating Specialist

May 21st 2009 

By the way, today we spilled 600 lbs of aluminum oxide on to the floor and people started sweeping and moaning.
After questioning their intelligence I grabbed the hose of Beastly sucking Dog, ...it was 20 feet straight up (I measured) over a handrail and down to the hopper which was sitting on the same floor as the spill ...and cleaned up the entire mess in a matter of few minutes, with no hesitation or choking.
Very impressive!
Don’t know any other mobile unit that will do that!
But then....that’s why we came to you in the first place, because, quite frankly, you suck better than all the rest....and I searched long and hard before I concluded that you knew things that others did not.

Julian Hay.
NACE Certified Coating Inspector #7382
SSPC Protective Coating Specialist